Voidhanger - Working Class Misanthropy

VOIDHANGER - Working Class Misanthropy (PAGAN Records LP 2013)

Voidhanger is another Polish band, which I'm big fan of and which I can sincerely recommend to all those, who never have had a chance to hear their music. Believe me, there is a seriously killer and insanely strong black metal here. Well, if you're familiar with Infernal War, then you can probably imagine that these musicians know what they're doing (Zyklon and Warcrimer are members of both bands, with Priest from Massemord on drums for a complete line up). "Working Class Misanthropy" is Voidhanger's second album (released back in 2013) and it may be the strongest recording from the band, but that's not something what would even matter here, especially if all the stuff this band did is great. 

But this album is about 35 minutes of straight forward, pure and absolutely relentless black metal, which has this great old school feel, which would on one hand give you resemblances to the classics from the 80's like Venom, Bathory, Sodom or Celtic Frost. And on the other hand, Voidhanger updated it all, so this music doesn't sound so archaic, primitive and typical as it commonly could. For example, they speeded it up so much that your head will fall off from the headbanging and insane amount of infectious energy the music brings. Voidhanger often brings these classic sounding thrashing black metal parts, but with faster tempos, more aggressive and savage attitude, so the result is more unique. Uncompromising, intense sound will crush your speakers, but at the same time you will realize that the music is very infectious and memorable, with the traditional verse / chorus structure that allows you to memorize songs better. Through the whole album Voidhanger shows us great riffage, hooky parts, whole lot of diverse styles of classic extreme metal, even vocals of Warcrimer can differ, depending on what sort of song they play. He shows that especially in such song as “Dni szarańczy”, which has Polish lyrics, or the title song, where he sounds a bit like Tom Warrior. Actually, this song is also a good example for using old style (Celtic Frost’s or even Darkthrone’s riffage in this case) and blasting it off with no compromising style. 

The title song, “Scorpion” or “ilsa” are some of the most infectious tracks here, I really love also the vicious and straight forward character of “No Ground to Hold”, especially its opening theme, which sounds like Swedish death metal and the insanely fast chorus part, which is KILLER!!!! I can only recommend this album then, I dare to say that in this old school type of playing you won’t find many better bands, especially that Voidhanger is not a useless “cut ‘n’ paste” old riffs kind of band, with no skills at all. 

Standout tracks: “Ilsa”, “Scorpion”, “No Ground to Hold” 

Verdict: 85/100